Google Glass Turns Its Lens on Sports

Slamson the Lion, the mascot for the Sacramento Kings, wearing Google Glass.

Kings.com

Google Glass is going pro – in the NBA.

When the Sacramento Kings host the Indiana Pacers Friday, the Kings’ announcer, cheerleaders, and furry lion mascot will sport Glass — Google’s wearable computer that looks like a futuristic pair of eyeglasses. Some players will wear Glass in the locker room and during warm-ups. The NBA has not approved players wearing the device during a game.

Each of the 12 participants will use Glass to record the game from their perspective. The Kings will then mix the video streams into one feed to be shown on the Sleep Train Arena scoreboard, the team’s smartphone app and the local TV broadcast.

“It will be a unique, insider-only experience that will bring our fans closer to the action than has ever before been experienced,” Chris Granger, the Kings president, said in an email.

The move is part of an effort by sports franchises to lure fans by enhancing the arena experience to better compete with TV. The Washington Capitals hockey team last week began distributing Glass to select fans on game nights. Through the built-in display, those fans can summon statistics and watch replays. The NBA’s Golden State Warriors last week said they, too, would begin testing ways to enhance fans’ experience with Google Glass.

“We’re trying to make what you can get in a live event better than what you can get in your living room,” says Brian Ballard, CEO of APX Labs, a three-year-old Virginia startup that built the Capitals software. APX is one of a handful of companies that are building sports-related apps for Google Glass.

Individual athletes have also been wearing Google Glass to film themselves during training. Bethanie Mattek-Sands, a professional tennis player, sported them at the Wimbledon Championships this year. Mattek-Sands didn’t wear them during play, but used the footage to improve her timing and positioning.

“Over the last year we’ve seen that some of our most enthusiastic Glass Explorers have come from the world of sports,” says Google spokesman Chris Dale.

CrowdOptic, a Silicon Valley startup, built the software the Kings will use to mix the feeds. The company, which has specialized in mixing cell-phone videos from live events, says it has contracts to launch the Google Glass application with four more sports teams in coming months.

CrowdOptic’s software relies on algorithms, not human beings, to sift through the video and identify highlights. “You don’t want to put up a broadcast of a guy looking at his shoes,” says Crowd Optic CEO Jon Fisher.

APX Labs, by contrast, started by building software for military-related technologies, like smart glasses and displays mounted on helmets.

The companies building applications for Google Glass say there are challenges in making the technology work for thousands of fans simultaneously at a game. For one, all those video feeds will require Wi-Fi bandwidth, and cell-phone reception is already difficult in some arenas.

The biggest challenge may be obtaining more pairs of Google Glass. So far, Google has been distributing the product to a select group of testers, called Explorers, who in turn can invite friends. But companies attempting to build large-scale commercial applications need more than one pair. APX and Crowd Optic have each managed to acquire at least ten pairs, and hope to get more. Google says there will be a wider consumer launch later this year.

“We’re looking to get our hands on a significant number,” says APX’s Ballard.